


The Politics Of...

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Monster Prom (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alcohol, Ballroom Dancing, Damn Miranda You Scary, Dark Comedy, F/M, Implied/Referenced Animal Death And Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24072310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: Miranda and Damien join their parents at an event for high-ranking monster families.
Relationships: Damien LaVey/Miranda Vanderbilt, Lucien LaVey/Stan LaVey
Kudos: 8





	The Politics Of...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flynn Zephyr (fwynnzies)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fwynnzies/gifts).



“Pff... fuck.”

Miranda tossed her head to the side, smiling primly. Hands crossed in front of the lap of her dress, just as primly.

Damien, as ever, by contrast, managed to look  _ hardly princely _ , despite his  _ wonderful  _ decorative armor, with its polish and shine as if it was made with the severed shells of rare giant beetles; despite his hallmark-of-royalty fur-lined capelet (of only the strongest and healthiest ermines, skinned alive for  _ freshness and gloss _ , Miranda was sure, with her eye for quality).

He slouched over the refreshments table like the simple sullen teenager he was, instead, eyes glazed and lids drooped. Tipped his battered flask of Rageahol to his lips for the umpteenth time that night, ignoring the fine wines, regarding the many other, older royal monsters as they mulled about the ballroom.

A slosh and a pop as he pulled it away with a flourish, and then slammed it down, palm to the mouth of it and fingers slowly drumming in a midair round. Two slow, dull blinks as he growled, thick, “Put it on my tab.”

Miranda had no idea what he was talking about.

She was, however, considering pointing him to the bottles of TaB - a customary drink around this time of the year in certain parts of the globe, albeit usually reserved for particularly-spoiled serfs of werebears - when he cut in again.

“Ughhhhh, this shit’s more reason why I’m gonna  _ hate  _ being king.”

Miranda’s brow arched. She bit her lip; her mouth slanted. “You… dislike pleasant and civil conversation with your fellow royal monsters?” she asked, truly not understanding.

“ -- Uh,  _ yes? _ ” Damien’s head snapped to face her, looking like someone had just asked if he had always been red.

“That’s strange,” she said, understanding even less. Taking a few long, gown-trailing strides closer up beside him on the table; she turned out to face the ballroom again, herself, wondering what, from his angle, he saw that had him feeling so...  _ melonchaly _ . “Despite your… how do I put this in a kind and friendly way? ‘ _ Unbearably churlish’ _ ... bearing, I have found it wonderful and surprisingly cultured when we’ve talked about such subjects as the massacre of the entire village of Velociraptronica, or the benefits of hide from the endangered - “

He drowned her out with another  _ growwwwwwwwl _ , and she  _ hopped back squeaking _ when he pounded his fist on the table to the clinking of jumping glass, gloved hands flying up in front of her.

“ _ Look _ , Miranda!” Wild-eyed, he pointed out into the room. “ _ Look! _ ” Jabbed that finger repeatedly into the air. “ _ Look look look look! _ ”

Hands still up, she tossed a look out in the very direction he indicated.

Lord LaVey and Lord LaVey did immediately catch her eyes - why  _ should  _ Damien not be pointing their way? Lord Lucien greeted a certain oni clan leader who Miranda had never spoken to personally with a flourishing bow - the kind one performed not to truly show respect but to show off the magnificence of one’s cape; truly a classic  _ and  _ classy move - while Lord Stan shook claws with…

Miranda grimaced and flinched, hands tucking up closer to her chest.

“I hope your Lord Daddy came to the ball with a  _ ritual hand-wash _ pre-prepared back at home,” she twisted through her teeth. “How  _ can  _ he touch his consort’s shoulder like that after touching the filthy claws of - “

“ _ Not my dad shaking hands with the Prime Minister of the Airpeople, _ Miranda,  _ look! _ ”

Another teeth-baring pound on the table and firm point in the air. Miranda double-took between demons, and, still not understanding, winced.

_ Well, all right then! _

“My dads are the biggest badasses  _ out  _ there!” Miranda detected a voice-crack. “How are they acting so fuckin’ normal when nothing’s exploded and no one’s gotten their head punched off or  _ anything  _ cool like that this  _ whole stupid party?! _ ”

...She detected  _ another  _ voice-crack.

She looked back at him, inquisitively.

...And puffed one light, high squeeze of a laugh on the look on his face.

There’d gone all that snarling. Nay… now he was looking out at his Lord Daddies wide-eyed and fangs parted, the way she had once seen a human watch  _ her  _ father  _ skin a fellow merman alive. _

And as the lights began to lower, so did the lids of her eyes.

A subtle glint in them.

He was going to  _ like  _ this, she was certain.

Even as he turned that silly gawk of his ceiling-ward, at the chandeliers fading from twilighty pinks and purples and oranges and yellows increasingly to lightlessness, the bluer purple of the darkness overtaking - his eyebrows furrowing deep, his head turning sharply as he tried intently to make out something that, surely, was not there.

“The  _ fuck…? _ ” he muttered. Legitimately softly. In such an utterly innocent, non-savvy kind of confusion, before he turned that gape of his back down to her.

Far less perturbed and more open now.

“Oh my god Miranda,” in trundled his voice again, “is this where the Battle Royale starts or -- “

Her turn to cut him off.

She and Daddy had, conveniently, choreographed this much; she shut her eyes gently and beamed and stood taller, and clapped her hands thrice.

Through the lids of her eyes, she vaguely saw…  _ more  _ light.

Certainly heard Damien sucking in a gasp.

Delicately  _ (as ever) _ , she reopened her eyes. Still  _ beaming. _

Damien gripped table tight in those prettily-long nails of his by the edge, and leaned over it. His more-innocent gawk fixed on that ballroom interior.

Already satisfied, knowing, Miranda let her smile warm deeper in her cheeks.

She cast a look back out to it, yellow spotlights now cutting through the indigo darkness, on isolated couples.

Her parents, most importantly.

The lord and lady of the pixies of a certain subsect of the Unseelie court, caught in midair, as well; and a massive pair of giant squids, tentacles twined in a tango.

Thankfully, they were far too off to the side to distract too much.

Rather prominently, she assumed he was happy to see, were his fathers under one of those spotlights, where they had been.

Except they were now taking each other’s hands, and twining their tails together, and… well -- Lord Stan LaVey sure seemed like he was smiling, at least…!

...Ha… she would have to ask Damien at some point! Why was it so hard to see Lord Lucien’s mouth…?

Her face had lightened, in any case, by the time she (proverbially) tossed it to him again, eyes gentle. A curiosity again that was falsely-curious… and yet somehow also only halfway so.

She fluttered her eyelashes in a couple of very fast blinks.  _ What do you think? _

Damien stayed frozen for one beat.

Two.

...Then he… turned to her. Strangely slowly.

He “chewed” his lower lip through his upper one. His face had flushed magenta.

_ “...Hohohohoooooly shit Miri I never thought there would be actual dancing at this dance.” _

Briefly, her face scrunched - a simple _ “ugh - silly you”  _ to get the reflex out - as she shut her eyes again; laced her hands together and lay them by her cheek for it to rest upon. In, short order, giggled, sweetly. Oh, you naive, un-princely thing…! “No, no, no - this is a  _ ball! _ ” she reminded him. “A  _ royal ball!  _ This lavish, expansive space is  _ traditionally  _ used as one to navigate for the purposes of eavesdropping,if you are among the invitees - and to showcase wealth and taste if you happen to be the hosts!”

Did he truly not know this…?!

“However!” She winked, feeling the situation earned it - she held it pointedly for one moment, two… Before she… didn’t shut her eyes, again, but blinked dreamily. This, too, he would like, and yet, ohh, how times had changed…! “...More and more civilizations over the years have been admitted to these royal balls - and I still utterly reject the notion that all monster community leaders should have come to be invited, but your family  _ is  _ technically royalty, and were the first invited ever to have ever married for love…”

...She knew exactly what to expect when she fluttered and then held her gaze on him again.

He truly did look at her from his upward angle as shocked as could be.

...She thought she he would understand this.

Low-lidded her eyes again; gave a quick lick between her lips, understanding this to be flirtatious.

The Prince of the Eighth Circle of Hell swallowed, and she clucked with soft laughter and then beamed again.

She reached toward him. 

Her heart cleared; lightened. She looked up at him.

Eyes once again just open and bright, as she began resting her fingertips against his forearms.

Readily, she said, “Come  _ on _ , now - it wouldn’t do for us, as heirs to arguably the two most prominent families attending this ball, to be seen not dancing, now that it is custom…!”

...She smiled perhaps a bit too hard for it to seem…

...entirely  _ “politically savvy”. _ Innocent.

And yet she supposed she could afford that, as his friend.

And his sharp little pupils switched down to her as he… shuffled them around the table, still looking out at the ballroom at his fathers, looking for something to model. His hands first grabbing her arms back, and then slipping down to the bottom of her waist.

Said pupils were sharp.

She both saw and heard him swallow - vocalization with a distinct Adam’s apple bob, which she replied to with another lash-battering shut of her eyes, and open, to a knowing satisfaction…

...and then let a smile pull deeper into the side of her face as his tail, too, wrapped around her waist.

The conductor, literally below the ballroom floor, she could hear indicating their timing until the music started, and in two brief moments, she saw Damien’s eyes shift on and off of her where she had practically begun looming against him, under the level of his jaw, slipping her hands up into position against a set of ribs and a shoulder.

Oh, how…

_...sweet _ it was.

Seeing her lovely, ungainly friend learn how to _be_ a prince…!

**Author's Note:**

> Rather belatedly inspired by an r/FanFiction prompt for the month of April, which proposed an idea of writing a one-shot about characters being invited to an event for their worlds' elite!


End file.
